For a university that claims just one national championship to its name, Vanderbilt certainly has a national stage when it comes to alumni sports writers. It always felt more literary and less journalistic. Basketball and football are simple games, but the people who play them are, by and large, interesting characters to dig into and profile and deconstruct.
It lends itself to dramatic writing. Sports is full of characters who are amusing and entertaining and compelling. Travis: I started writing when I was practicing law full time, and my goal was to offer just 15 to 20 minutes of entertainment for overeducated lawyers who were sitting in front of their computer screens all day like me.
These people are intelligent, but just not into reading newspapers. I think the Internet gives me the freedom to be more creative.
There was an excruciating loss to LSU: We decided to go for two in the last minute of the game, and we got two delay-of-game penalties and ended up having to kick from the yard line. The kick was blocked.
I went right to my dorm room and crushed [Coach Woody Widenhofer] for the next six hours. That memory sums up Vanderbilt to me because it was a terrible day, but I got a good column out of it.
